Noun

1 one of a series of rounded projections (or the
notches between them) formed by curves along an edge (as the edge
of a leaf or piece of cloth or the margin of a shell or a shriveled
red blood cell observed in a hypertonic solution etc.) [syn:
crenation, crenature, crenel, crenelle]

2 edible muscle of mollusks having fan-shaped
shells; served broiled or poached or in salads or cream sauces
[syn: scollop, escallop]

Verb

A scallop ( or /ˈskæləp/) is a marinebivalvemollusk of the family
Pectinidae. Scallops constitute a cosmopolitan
family, found in all of the world's oceans. Many scallops are
highly prized as a food source. Some scallops are valued for their
brightly colored shells.

Like the true oysters (family Ostreidae),
scallops have a central adductor muscle, and thus the
inside of their shells has a characteristic central scar, marking
the point of attachment for this muscle. The adductor muscle of
scallops is larger and more developed than that of oysters, because they are active
swimmers; scallops are in fact the only migratory bivalve. Their
shell shape tends to be highly regular, recalling one archetypal form of a seashell, and because of this
pleasing geometric shape, the scallop shell is a common decorative
motif.

Most scallops are free-living, but some species can attach to a
substrate by a structure called a byssus, or even be cemented to
their substrate as adults (e.g. Hinnites spp.). A free-living
scallop can swim, by rapidly opening and closing its shell. This
method of locomotion is also a defense technique, protecting it
from threatening predators. Some scallops can
make an audible soft popping sound as they flap their shells
underwater, leading one seafood vendor to dub them "singing
scallops".

Life cycle

Scallops are hermaphroditic, or capable
of switching sexes. Both sexes produce roe, whose coloring depends upon the
parent's (current) sex. Red roe is that of a female, and white,
that of a male. Spermatozoa and ova are released freely into the
water during mating season and fertilized ova sink to the bottom.
After several weeks, the immature scallop hatches and the larvae
drift until settling to the bottom again to grow. They reach sexual
maturity after several years, though they may not reach a
commercially harvestable size until six to eight years of age.
Scallops may live up to 18 years, with their age reflected in the
annuli, the concentric
rings of their shells.

Taxonomy and list of genera

In total, in the family Pectinidae, there are
more than 30 genera and around 350 species. While species are
generally well circumscribed, their attribution to subfamilies and
genera is sometimes equivocal, and there is minimal information
about phylogeny and relationships of the species, not least because
most work has been based on adult morphology (Barucca et al.,
2004).

Scallops as a food source

On the east coast of the United
States, the availability of bay scallops has been greatly
diminished by the overfishing of sharks in the area. A variety of
sharks have, until recently, fed on rays, which are a
main predator of bay scallops. With the shark population reduced,
in some places almost totally, the rays have been free to dine on
scallops to the point of greatly decreasing their numbers.

According to Seafood
Watch, scallops from the Mid-atlantic are currently on the list
of fish that American consumers who are sustainability-minded
should avoid.

Gathering scallops

Scallops were traditionally caught by dragging
the seabed, but now in British seas there is a trade in scuba diving
to catch scallops. The largest scallops usually enjoyed in the U.S.
are New
England's diver scallops. They are hand-caught on the ocean
floor, as opposed the majority of the scallop harvest which are
dredged and dragged across the sea floor, causing them to collect
sand. As a result, diver scallops tend to be less gritty than the
traditionally harvested crop. They are also more ecologically
friendly, as the harvesting method is sustainable and does not
cause damage to undersea flora. In addition, the normal
harvesting methods can cause delays of up to two weeks before they
arrive at market, which can cause the flesh to break down and
result in a much shorter shelf life.

Scallops in cooking

Scallops are a popular type of shellfish in both Eastern and
Western cooking. They
are characterised by having two types of meat in one shell: the
adductor
muscle, called "scallop" which is white and meaty, and the
roe, called "coral", which
is red or white and soft.

In Western
cuisine, scallops are commonly sautéed in
butter, or else breaded and deep fried.
Scallops are commonly paired with light semi-dry white wines. In
the U.S., when a scallop is prepared, usually only the adductor
muscle is used; the other parts of the scallop surrounding the
muscle are ordinarily discarded. Sometimes markets sell scallops
already prepared in the shell with only the adductor muscle intact.
Outside the U.S. the scallop is often sold whole.

Scallops that are without any additives are
called "dry packed" while scallops that are treated with sodium
tripolyphosphate (STP) are called "wet packed". STP causes the
scallops to absorb moisture prior to the freezing process, thereby
getting a better price per unit of weight. The freezing process
takes about two days.

In a sushi bar, hotategai (帆立貝, 海扇) is the
traditional scallop on rice, and while kaibashira (貝柱) may be
called scallops, it is actually the adductor muscle of any kind of
shellfish, e.g. mussels,
oysters, or clams.

Scallops have lent their name to the culinary
term scalloped, which originally referred to seafood creamed and
served hot in the shell (Rombauer 1964). Today it means a creamed
casserole dish such as scalloped
potatoes, which contains no seafood at all.

Symbolism

Shell of Saint James

The scallop shell is the traditional emblem of
Saint
James the Greater and is popular with pilgrims on the Way of St
James to the apostle's shrine at Santiago
de Compostela in Spain. Medieval Christians
making the pilgrimage
to his shrine often wore a scallop shell symbol on their hat or
clothes. The pilgrim also carried a scallop shell with him and
would present himself at churches, castles, abbeys etc. where he
could expect to be given as much sustenance as he could pick up
with one scoop. Probably he would be given oats, barley, and
perhaps beer or wine. Thus even the poorest household could give
charity without being overburdened. The association of Saint James
with the scallop can most likely be traced to the legend that the
apostle once rescued a knight covered in scallops. An alternate
version of the legend holds that while St. James's remains were
being transported to Spain from Jerusalem, the
horse of a knight fell into the water, and emerged covered in the
shells.

In Danish,
ibskal (literally: "Ib's shell") refers to scallops worn by
pilgrims from Santiago de Compostella (Ib being the Danish name for
St. James), although when used in cooking it is referred to as
"kammusling".

In Italian,
scallops may be known as "pettine di mare" (literally, "sea combs")
or as the capasanta or cappasanta (pl. capesante or cappesante). It
is generally the large Pecten jacobeus scallop, however, that goes
by these latter names (also called the conchiglia di San Giacomo or
St. Jacob's/St. James' Shell).

Fertility symbol

One legend of the Way of
St. James holds that the route was seen as a sort of fertility
pilgrimage, undertaken when a young couple desired to bear
offspring. The scallop shell is believed to have originally been
carried therefore by pagans as a symbol of fertility.

Many paintings of Venus,
the Roman goddess of love and fertility, included a scallop shell
in the painting to identify her. This is evident in Botticelli'sclassically
inspired
The Birth of Venus (which has even been nicknamed "Venus on the
half-shell").

Alternatively, the scallop resembles the setting
sun, which was the focus of the pre-Christian Celtic rituals of the
area. To wit, the pre-Christian roots of the Way of St. James was a
Celtic death journey westwards towards the setting sun, terminating
at the End of the World (Finisterra) on the "Coast of Death" (Costa
de Morta) and the "Sea of Darkness" (ie, the Abyss of Death, the
Mare Tenebrosum, Latin for the Atlantic Ocean, itself named after
the Dying Civilization of Atlantis). The reference to St. James
rescuing a "knight covered in scallops" is therefore a reference to
St. James healing, or resurrecting, a dying (setting sun) knight.
Similarly, the notion of the "Sea of Darkness" (Atlantic Ocean)
disgorging St. James' body, so that his relics are (allegedly)
buried at Santiago de Compostella on the coast, is itself a
metaphor for "rising up out of Death", that is, resurrection.

Heraldry

The scallop shell symbol found its way into
heraldry as a badge of
those who had been on the pilgrimage to Compostela, although later
it became a symbol of pilgrimage in general. Winston
Churchill's family coat of
arms includes a scallop, another example is the surname
Wilmot and
also John
Wesley's (which as a result the scallop shell is used as an
emblem of Methodism).
However, charges in heraldry do not always have an unvarying
symbolic meaning, and there are cases of arms in which no family
member went on a pilgrimage and the occurrence of the scallop is
simply a pun on the name of the armiger, or for other
reasons.